Day 15: Mission sCrypt

In 2010 Rick Pipito’s novel FLESH AND LEFTOVERS was published. It was fan reaction to this novel that gave birth to sCrypt Comics. Rick began receiving hundreds of emails asking him to write more zombie stories. They’d loved what they had read. The problem was that Rick didn’t want to do the same thing twice. He was done with zombies at that point and the series would continue on, featuring a new threat with each new novel.

In order to appease the fans, Rick contacted his brother, Dan Pipito. Here’s how the conversation went over the phone:

RICK: Dan, you aren’t going to believe this, but people really want me to do more zombie stories.

DAN: That’s great. So do it then.

RICK: I think I will, but I’m done with writing it in novel form.

DAN: What did you have in mind?

RICK: Let’s do a comic book spinoff.

DAN: …………. Who?

RICK: You and I. We start a comic company. I don’t know what we’ll call it. But we aim to make horror comics. They will be spinoff stories and kind of fill in parts for my books.

DAN: Okay, but you do realize that there is no way we can do this just the two of us.

RICK: I know. So I’ve been thinking about it. You know what it is like to get your art out there and make a name for yourself… I know the same deal with music. What if we have other artists do the stories with us?

DAN: Um. Money is a major issue.

RICK: Tell me about it. That’s why we do it for exposure. Let’s get the artists to come in and we will promote their names in the comics and any press or social media we do. We can even do an artist of the month and start a site that I’ll run. Of course we also give them a copy of the final product.

DAN: Lots of artists will want pay, but I’m sure we can get people who will want to get exposure and add something to their portfolio.

So this is how the conversation went, and thus the idea was born. Rick went to work on writing the spinoffs, and Dan came up with the name and logo. sCrypt is a play on words. Rick writes the script and the crypt signifies the horror angle. Rick’s primary job is to find the talent and write the stories. Dan is art direction and design. Both of them lay out storyboards and discuss ideas to allow as much creative freedom for each artist involved. They want it to be their stories but through other people’s eyes, so each artist is allowed to use any medium or color format that they want for their individual task.

Each comic is a long tedious process for both Rick and Dan, but they’ve gotten to work with some amazing people. Many more ideas are being developed for future releases and the goal is to expand and learn with each new project. Check out the available comic books via the link on the right, and click on the artist of the month tab to see some of the great people they’ve worked with.